SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Unfortunately, I find myself new to the group having just found out that my wife of 24 years participated in a seven month affair. Like everyone else, finding out was crushing and has destroyed my life. I thought we were invincible and would have never thought in my scariest of nightmares that this would happen to me/us. But the last couple of months I’ve noticed how distant she was, staying out later and coming in at 1am, didn’t want sex, always rude to me and our friends, and overall just didn’t want to be at home with me. I joked about it with my friends, who all thought I was crazy, but I had my suspicions.

In early July I received the cell phone bill and noticed that she has been talking to a certain number a lot, like 173 times for 42 hours worth over the last five months. I looked up the number and recognized the name, a friend of a friend. We have separate checking accounts and I’m listed on hers so I went and pulled her bank statements, which showed 14 hotel charges going back to Feb 21st. I called the hotels to confirm charges, they were all room charges. I started digging in more to see that every encounter was preceded by stops at a wine store, waxing, Victoria Secrets. The encounters had no pattern of when, and happened weather I was out of town or at home sitting on the couch… but every time I was out of town she did reserve a room for the two of them. All the encounters were premeditated, planned. Some instances she told me she had to work downtown and had to spend the night as she visited with Sales Force, but she was really with him. A couple of occasions instead of going out of town with me, she planned a stay in a hotel with him. And several occasions she said she was at happy hour with a friend, I was at home and she was in the room. I started noticing the hundreds of lies, seeing when she went to the store and really she sat in a parking lot talking to him for hours. We’d do things with friends, she’d disappear for a while… she was talking to him come to find out. He data went up from 6Gig to over 12. There were no chats, they leveraged SnapChat to coordinate and communicate right under my nose. So I confronted her on July 6th, and she was extremely angry and lying about things… hotel charge, they have a good bar. Then went in to defense mode, “What did you expect?”, “What do you want me to say?”, “I’ve been unhappy for a long time!”, “I’m bored with our life.” Through all this she never acknowledged the affair… again; I found out and approached her. She was clearly angry because I ruined things, but embarrassed and it took three weeks to get any answers. She has finally acknowledged the affair… explaining that they are just friends and there is nothing emotional, never was. It started as a group of friends in a bar at happy hour. She flirted with him a lot, giving signs. He walked her to her car, kissed her and she kissed him back. Within three weeks they went from a first kiss, to oral in our car, to hotel rooms just a few days after Valentine’s Day. We’ve discussed a lot in detail, but it was all trickle truths and I don’t believe she’s been totally honest with me… maybe it’s for the best.

My first reaction was divorce, and we even filed. There’s a 60 day cool off period in Texas so we’re currently waiting that out. Meanwhile, she has been very remorseful and asked to reconcile, plus the families have asked that we visit a counselor. We’ve been to the counselor three times, and have committed to six months of sessions, which I said OK but with no guarantees. I know the sessions will help me for this relationship or the next, and I know she needs it too. I’ve told her I need her help with patience and building trust, plus I need her to continue showing remorse… like every day. She has the approach of forget and move on, but she’s the cheater so that makes sense. She doesn’t want to keep talking about it. She’s done little aside the remorse, which she’s shown. She won’t let me have access to her phone, to setup find my friends. It also took her three plus weeks to remove the other guy from her phone… they haven’t chatted since July 8th. She’s continually tried sleeping in the same room/bed with me… not sex, just wanting to be near me. I like that but I’m so not ready. She’s done little patience or trust wise… but continues to show remorse. She says she doesn’t know why she did it, and that it is her fault… not mine. I do still love her, and recognize I have faults that made her unhappy… not cheat on me, that was her choice… though I feel that sometimes I fall in to taking the blame for that too. But as we try to see if there’s a future, I have anger issues and looking for clarity on if I can forgive, not forget, and move on with a healthy relationship without holding a grudge, which wouldn’t be fair to her. I’m having issues with the fact that she didn’t tell me and I found out. She says she loves me and always thought about our future and growing old together. That she was literally living two lives and she had no emotional attachment to him. But I see that she gave up on us and wanted him by her actions, not me. I was second choice; she never wanted me and never came back to me until I caught her. How is this not emotional? Also, my self esteem and man card has taken a huge hit. Some specifics about size and her saying she was happy the last six months has me feeling inferior. I can’t change in front of her and keep telling her that anything sexual is way down the road… I don’t think she can wait. And again, she wanted him and not me, continually going back and searching for ways to get away from me and be with him. And then the ever popular… we have the sexual acts themselves. How do you get rid of the visions? The first kiss, oral in the car, hotel rooms, her waking up in his arms, etc.

I’ve spent most the last three weeks reading on the internet and writing in a journal. The journal helps, but also hurts when you revisit things. With the trickle truths and trust issues, you find yourself always going back to see if there’s another lie or detail missed. And I know this is going to take a long time and I have a good support network of friends, both who have been cheated on and done the cheating. But I guess I’m looking for help from someone who doesn’t know us, and the counseling sessions are taking way to long at once a week. So sorry for the novel and I hope I provided the right info, but any feedback and comments would be much appreciate. Thanks!

Please stop saying she's remorseful. She isn't. You can tell by how she's dealing with this. Not being transparent, wanting to stop talking about it and moving on. I can guarantee you it's either still going on (maybe taking a break until things cool down) or it will start back up soon.

Don't believe for a second she's remorseful. Her actions prove she is not. Press forward with divorce. That'll snap her into reality or it won't. Either way it'll be better for you.

As for douche bag OM, what's his deal? Do you know who it is? That is an absolute must. Have you exposed this affair? That is also a must. Is he married? If so, his BW must be notified.

You've done some very good things and not so good things so far. Don't fret that, it happens to all of us. Definitely be very very firm about this. Don't be a doormat in any way and don't stand for even 1 scrap of the shit sandwich she's trying to feed you.

She's trying to control this situation and you absolutely can't allow that. Good luck my friend. You came to the right place. Be a wise man and LISTEN to the people here.

I've done as much as I can for the divorce, we have to wait till 9/18 now before we can appear in front of the judge... day before my Bday too. :-( I told her last night that this marriage is in her hands now, the burden is on her to show remorse, patience, and build trust. If not, come 9/18 we'll make the drive to finalize. So she has to make all the effort now, I've done more than I should have IMO.

Remorse, I'm having issues understand what is true remorse and what isn't. I know my mind is clouded but what should I do or look for?

The OM, I don't know him personally but our closest friends use to work with him... and my best friends wife is real good friends with him. The wives would do happy hour and he'd follow along. He listened and laughed at her. He has a girlfriend and she doesn't know. Supposedly he's cheated on previous partners as well.

Cincykid is correct about this. Your wife is not remorseful at all.

She won’t let me have access to her phone

A truly remorseful spouse would hand over their phone without hesitation. She would be coming to you to discuss the affair. She would disclose everything without you having to hound her for the details. She would be seeking IC to get to the root of why she cheated. There is more, but that gives you an idea of what you should be seeing.

Right now, she's doing what is necessary to placate you and that's just not enough.

What is remorse?

When asked why you shouldn't murder someone, the answer could be because I don't have the right to hurt another human being and his loved ones. Close

to remorse.

Another answer is, I shouldn't murder someone because I would go to jail. Thats Regret.

Its easy to get confused by each of these. Are they sad because they got caught or because they hurt you. I believe remorse is also going out of your way to make the other person feel safe. Right now you have zero trust in her, she probably understands that, so the logical thing to do is build that trust back up by not hiding anything. If she doesn't want to talk about it or give you access to her phone, then she isn't going out of her way to prove that she is safe.

It sounds like she has a whole bunch of regret but not much remorse. She may get there, she may not. She is working on borrowed time so she better hurry the hell up. The important thing to remember is Actions always speak louder than words. Always watch her actions, words mean little.

Edited to correct grammar.

[This message edited by Randy1133 at 10:25 AM, August 8th (Tuesday)]

She is still in contact with him.

Whether it is via a phone application, or in person and she doesn't want it tracked, she is still in contact.

Do you know how you will know remorse? When she leaves zero doubt about her effort towards saving the marriage. Her level of effort should be nothing short of astounding. Her resistance to your reasonable request for transparency should be zero.

This affair is still ongoing. Send her on her way.

Meanwhile, she has been very remorseful and asked to reconcile.

Not so fast my friend.

Your wife is not remorseful. How do I know?

1- She doesn't want to talk about the affair.

2- She's not being transparent with her communication devices.

If your WW is truly remorseful she will accept all consequences and own what she did. And I strongly suspect you haven't given her all the consequences she needs to receive. Added to those above, they include:

3- Send a no contact letter to OM that you review.

4- Get tested for STD's.

5- Acceptance of you exposing her to your family, her family and OM's spouse or SO.

6- Account for her time away from you. No more GNO's

7- She writes you a time line of the A.

If you attempt R with her without her accepting every one of those consequences above, you're making a mistake. You'll wind up in a false R, you'll be miserable, and she's likely to cheat again. If she doesn't turn around, then give her the final consequence; to understand what it feels like to lose her husband for cheating on him.

Right now your path should be towards D until she proves, by her actions, that she has earned your "consideration" for R.

See an attorney and get your ducks in a row either way.

Keep posting.

[This message edited by badmemory at 11:01 AM, August 8th (Tuesday)]

Make sure you have a damn good lawyer.

Expose to the OM girlfriend, and make damn sure all the other wives, ( and their husbands) know what's going on.

This is rule #1 here at SI. Blow this shit UP!!!

Your wife doesn't seem the least bit remorseful, only evasive, dismissively arrogant, and mostly likely still in the middle of the A.

She won’t let me have access to her phone, to setup find my friends. It also took her three plus weeks to remove the other guy from her phone… they haven’t chatted since July 8th

That just screams she's lying and still in it. We all have seen it a hundred times here. Trust us.

how is her refusing to give you her phone "remorse"?

I've collected this list from various threads here on SI.

I believe You currently no where near have a remorseful wife in front of you. If you did, you would know it.

- She would be inconsolable with the thought of how she was the cause of so much pain to the person she loves most in the world.

- she would be begging to know what she could do to make it right.

- for you she would want to let everyone know it was her that screwed up, not you.

- she would want to read books on how to support her BS. She proactively orders them and starts reading. She actively discussed what she is reading

- she would be in IC as much as possible to figure out what went wrong with her and how she could do this to the person she loves most in the world. She proactively schedules this for herself and also proactively asks her therapist for IC recommendations for you to help you deal with the pain she has caused.

- she would feel your pain more than her own and put your happiness ahead of hers.

- she would write you a letter of apology highlighting how she must have made you feel

- she would focus most on your well being, ignoring her own

- she would realize what the OM really is and start being sick at the thought of him/her. She would start calling him/her names like POS for how he helped her destroy her life.

- They show remorse thru actions, not words. Examples of this could be that they proactively prepared a written timeline of what happened and are as thorough and factual as they can be.

- Other examples are: They book a polygraph when you are available to attend. And they buy a GPS tracker for their car so they can give you peace of mind. They sell something of value to only them to pay for these things so the cost doesn't come from their joint funds (e.g. Collectibles or jewelry or exercise equipment).

If they are only showing Regret and not Remorse then they will only be giving you words, not actions: e.g. "I'm so sorry. But you can trust me now. I promise you I've told you the whole truth: e.g. "You can trust me now. I love you. It didn't mean anything. I know I messed up - do you forgive me? I was so stupid, but I've learned from my mistakes. It's in the past now and we can move forward. I love you more now than I ever have. I promise it will never happen again, can we move on?"

Finally. THE EFFORT PUT INTO RECONCILIATION! If the betrayer doesn't work harder at repairing the relationship than they did to damage it, it isn't going to work no matter if you stay together or not. They need to be working harder at R than you are.

I'm sorry you are here friend. Please don't think your wife is being remorseful, she is sorry she got caught. Not being transparent by letting you see her phone, emails etc and not wanting to talk about it are big red flags. What she is hoping is you will allow her to rug sweep it.

She doesn't have any empathy toward you otherwise she would be willing to do anything to rebuild that trust back.

Don't listen to a word she says, she is a known liar. Watch her actions , they will tell you where shes at.

Also please remember none of this is your fault. Sure she uses the excuse that she was unhappy, etc, but it's a bullshit excuse. She was self entitled and extremely selfish, that's why she did it. She could have told you if she was unhappy , but no, she cheats instead. If she wants to save the marriage, she's gonna have to prove it. So far she is just giving you the minimum.

True remorse is full access to all of her devices, no contact with the guy anymore, and a sense of full empathy and pain for the hurt she caused you....along with a full desire to make things work.

the fact that she is not fully there means she still has feelings for this guy. A woman doesn't have sex repeteadely with a guy and not develop emotions.

Answering one of your questions.....if true remorse is there and you both work on reconciliation it will be 1-2 years before the visuals are not very painful. They will always be there as your marriage has changed forever...but not as hurtful or obsessive.t.

[This message edited by JC109 at 11:54 AM, August 8th (Tuesday)]

On top of the other good advice you got about telling his girlfriend, insisting on the device access, etc. I wanted to highlight this:

and my best friends wife is real good friends with him

Tell the best friend what happened. He needs to watch his wife. Also consider that you probably cannot allow your wife to socialize with this woman again. She likely knew all about the A and assisted in perpetuating it.

Thanks all for the awesome feedback, truly appreciated.

A harder question to ask, does it honestly say anything that I found out about the affair and she didn't tell me? That she didn't stop it or had no intentions to. I've read different things online, and I honestly have a harder time swallowing this than the multiple sex acts themselves.

Another piece, my wife and I are high school sweethearts, been dating since she was a freshman in HS. ITS NOT RIGHT, but friends and others have told me how she never got to explore or be adventurous, and I'm the only person she's ever been with.

Of course it doesn't help that she didn't confess. Why didn't she confess? Because she loved the affair. Loved every second of it. All your years together meant absolutely nothing to her during this affair. She didn't feel guilty or bad about what she was doing. She feels entitled to do it and still feels entitled to lie about it and hide things from you. Like her phone. Why would anyone hide their phone from their spouse? I wouldn't. You wouldn't. You know who would hide their phone from their spouse? Cheaters. She's still cheating. She's not remorseful. I'm sorry and that really sucks for you. She's still stuck in the fog. When that fog wears off she'll break down but you're not there yet. If you demand STD testing and push forward hard with divorce then you may have a chance at breaking that fog.

BTW, these "friends and family" of yours telling you she didn't get to sow her wild oats. They're not helping. They're contributing to her thinking she was entitled to do this.

You have to show her that you're going to be just fine without her. You can save this but you have to break that fog first or you move on and find happiness. I know you can't find happiness with an unremorseful cheater on your hands and that's what you have. Does she have a history of foolish pride? Pride has ruined so many people's lives.

It is almost always the case that the A is discovered and not just abandoned. Read around on this site and you will see it over and over. A lot of times when it does end "on its own" you will find out that really what happened is that the A was discovered by the other spouse who ended it but didn't tell the other side and even sometimes when a Wayward confesses because they feel such "guilt" you find out that they were just trying to get ahead of a reveal that they knew was coming. The Wayward is enjoying themselves, why end it until they have to?

The high school sweetheart thing is typical. People say it all of the time. They didn't get to be 20, 21, 22, etc. They just wanted to "explore". So what. You didn't either. It doesn't change that she made a choice to do this. She could have talked to you about these issues before choosing this path. There really is no excuse for deciding on her own to break your vows.

It's actually pretty rare that a wayward confesses without discovery. Mostly once they get a bite of cake the op offers , they continue to eat. I think most of us have been the one to uncover the affair rather than the wayward just confessing.

As far as her not having an opportunity to explore , that's just bullshit. She could have explored together with you , but she didn't. Besides she made a vow to forsake all others and didn't. If she wanted the single life she could have told you she wanted a divorce yo explore other things, but she didn't.

I'll echo many of the others here...she needs to willingly give you access to everything, forever.

This was an obvious condition of our R, and if I ever catch my wife using a secret email, chat app, or burner phone, then we are done...instant filing for D, no exceptions.

Also, marriage counseling at this point is a waste of time and money...the MC will want to concentrate on the M, and not get to the bottom of her A.

***If at any point the MC states, or even hints, that her A was your fault because of M issues, you need to stand up and walk out immediately!!! Do not allow that to go uncontested, otherwise she will continue in her entitled attitude and you will be the victim of another A later if you stay!!!***

You both should be in individual counseling for now, MC later if you get to the point that you actually want to commit to R.

Others have alluded to this, but I want to emphasize it:

You need to stop judging her by her words, and start paying attention to her actions.

Over the course of a long marriage, you come to trust your partner so much that you instinctively believe what they say. It's super difficult to train your brain out of that habit.

But here's the thing: she lied to you. She lied to you over and over and over again. She looked you in the eye and lied. She thought up lies in advance. She made up lies on the spur of the moment. She took actions to cover up those lies.

So now here's the situation that she created: you cannot believe anything she tells you.

You can't believe her when she says it wasn't emotional. You can't believe her when she says she's actually gone no contact. You can't believe her when she says she'll never do it again. You can't believe her when she claims this is the only affair she's ever had.

What's worse? You can't believe her when she says she loves you. You can't believe her when she says she wants to grow old together. You can't believe her when she says she regrets hurting you.

You literally cannot trust anything she says. If she tells you the sky is blue, you need to step outside and verify it for yourself.

The only method she has to communicate with you is her actions. You can trust her actions.

As others have said, her actions are not indicative of someone who's remorseful; to be honest, her actions are actually quite consistent with someone who is actually still having the affair. But the important thing for you to internalize and wrap your head around isn't how you're interpreting her particular actions right now; it's that her actions are the only thing you should be paying attention to. For the foreseeable future, her words are just meaningless vibrations in your eardrum, devoid of meaning.

[This message edited by Sordid at 1:54 PM, August 8th (Tuesday)]